


Good Investments

by feelinglikecleo



Category: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, BAMF Inej Ghafa, Brick By Brick But Make It About Mental Health And Introspection, Did I Not Tag Modern AU, F/M, Finally, Fluff, Forced Prostitution, Fraternal Pining, Gymnastics, Hallelujah, Healing, Human Trafficking, I LOVE Our Revenge Babies But That's Not What Healing Looks Like, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Inej as Burlesque Dancer, Inej as Dance Teacher, Inej as Social Worker, Inej got Therapy, Jesper Calls Wylan His Husband, Justice vs Revenge, Kaz and Jesper Talk It Out, Kaz got Therapy, POV Inej Ghafa, POV Kaz Brekker, Pole Dancing, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Relationship Negotiation, Sexuality, Therapy, You're Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-01
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:06:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29129991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelinglikecleo/pseuds/feelinglikecleo
Summary: eleven years on, inej is a dancer. she has battled her demons and won but learning to remove her armour was not as simple as chasing down slavers. in this modern au, justice is more convoluted and revenge can’t replace therapy. so, inej is going to have to take the long route.
Relationships: Inej Ghafa & Wylan Van Eck, Jesper Fahey & Inej Ghafa, Jesper Fahey/Wylan Van Eck, Kaz Brekker & Jesper Fahey, Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Comments: 14
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i gave this an m rating and put the archive warning on just to be safe. there is no explicit smut but there is description of inej's time at the menagerie and some saucy bits with our favourite bastard. characters (i mean kaz) may seem a ooc because in this timeline they're going through their own journey, one that isn't the focus of the fic. 
> 
> i just think inej's trauma deserves just as much exploration as kaz's. is that too much to ask?

Present

The lights are down and the murmur of the crowd is at a low ebb after Jasmine steps off the stage into the green room. Inej watches her pull fat wads of kruge from between her g-string and hip. They flutter onto her narrow dressing table soundlessly.

“They’re rowdy tonight,” she says. “Looked like a lot of sailors.”

Across the room, Stephanie is adjusting the straps of the lace teddy encasing her voluptuous figure. Her full breasts, Inej notes, are barely contained by the garment. “It’s Joe’s crew. They’re back in town for their downtime.”

“Putting in a little extra effort for your man, are we?” Jasmine smirks.

“You know it.”

With a wink and a final dab of body glitter, Stephanie waltzes out of the room, leaving Inej to stare at her reflection in the mirror.

She is dressed for battle. The suit is a red so dark it looks black in the low light and it’s cut is sharper than the knife she keeps in her purse, sharper than her boy’s wicked tongue. Inej has painted her full lips to match, so that when she smiles, her teeth shine like those of a wolf, a panther, a lynx in the night. Her hair is coiled and pinned to the nape of her neck. Nothing about it even hints at her profession. But underneath, she’s wrapped in an almost perfectly sheer bodysuit with only glitter and shadows to hide the most private parts of her.

With a flick of her wrist, Inej draws a line of kohl over her lashes that flares and tapers to a fine point. Tilting her head from side to side, she inspects her work, adjusting the pigment here and there.

“You look delicious, Inej. As always.” Jasmine comes to stand behind her, pulling a leather jacket on over her an old band shirt. “I’m headed out for the night. Don’t give the old fellas a heart attack, alright?”

“I can’t make any promises,” Inej says, stoppering the bottle.

The high trill of the other woman’s laugh follows her out of the room as Inej rises from her seat and heads toward the stage. She can hear Stephanie’s final song come to a close, with no small amount of protest from the crowd. The shuffling of chairs and rising murmur of conversation precedes Stephanie into the green room.

Inej takes a deep breath, centring herself. She reaches up then folds forward, palms flat on the ground, and rises slightly onto the tips of her toes in a deep stretch. She stretched before getting changed but it’s never a bad idea to test the give of the suit. Everything stays where it should and as she rises out of the position, she ruminates on the butterflies in her belly. They chase each other along her limbs, over her skin, from the very tips of her fingers to the top of her head, from the restless chambers of her heart to the ground beneath her bare feet.

Stephanie whistles as Inej straightens her cuffs. “Knock ‘em dead,” she whispers, wickedly.

_Ten years earlier_

_It was the Lynx’s last night at the Menagerie. Had it not been the last, it would rank among the worst. Tante Heleen, otherwise known as the Peacock, had arranged for her to be visited by not one, not two, but three men—an unholy number._

_The first was timid, gentle even. They always thought that made their actions forgivable, less violating, somehow. He breathed in her ear and stroked her hair as he moved over her, within her. He finished quickly. For that, at least, the Lynx was grateful. (What a miserable thing to be grateful for)._

_The second, a round man with coarse hair and hands the size of dinner plates, took his time. This man suffered from a common delusion. That he understood the female form. So confident is he that under his careful ministrations women would come apart with pleasure, he descends into a violent mania when, inevitably, they fail to do so. It was not his first visit to the Lynx, however, so she anticipated his needs._

_Inej vanished. Her body was not her own, her pleasure that of someone else. In her place, the Lynx writhed and gasped and moaned as this man pawed at her supple frame. Every inch the willing participant, every inch his fantasy. If the Peacock were capable of the emotion she would have been proud._

_In these moments, she felt furthest from herself. The Lynx lived the lie so completely she forgot the patina of her edges, the sharpness of her beginnings and the soft susurration of her endings. Who was she anyway, but the object of their desire? The receptacle for their needs and wants and violence?_

_The third was beautiful. The Lynx chastised herself for thinking so but she couldn’t help it. His smile was languid, generous. His eyes the warmest green, like grass on the other side. This man stood in front of her and tilted her chin up, kissed her softly. Then, he wrapped a hand around her throat and whispered venomous promises in her ear. With a tickle of breath against her neck, he detailed the ways in which he’d ruin her, poison and sunder and humiliate her._

_She didn’t cry. The Lynx hadn’t cried in years. But it was a near thing._

_She didn’t know then that she was hours from salvation. Perhaps if she had, she would have fought. Instead, she gave in to his perversions. Broke herself down into the basest components. Wet and hot and open._

_In the three years she spent at the Menagerie, working off a debt that only grew, Inej learned a great many things about greed, about pain and power. At the time, the things she learned drifted, meaningless and untethered, in the maelstrom of her self. There was no purpose nor use to which the lessons might be put. She was nothing and nobody, everything and everyone._

_Tante Heleen taught her girls to be accommodating, hospitable, deferential. “Whatever they need, whatever they want, little Lynx, you are to give them.” She said it with a smile, with a caress of the cheek._

_The violence of the Peacock’s duality overshadowed even that of her most sadistic clients. Her affection and her hatred were indistinguishable, there was no telling where one ended and the other began and no anticipating which held sway in any given moment. Kindness became a stranger. Unknown and unknowable. Recognisable only in the shadow of cruelty._

_Inej bent and twisted and broke until she disappeared, melted away, vanished._

Present

The stage is unlit but for the pool of a spotlight at its very centre. The venue is an unusual design. In the round, they call it. The stage sits in the middle of the room, a circular platform surrounded on all sides by small tables and scattered chairs. Tonight, the chairs are full. People crowd the bar and the tables, right up to the foot of the stage.

Inej is the final performer of the night and she can taste the crowds anticipation, feel the silence of their bated breath.

The music comes in with a high vocalisation, almost a wail, before shattering into the rhythmic percussion that heralds her entry. She appears on the stage as if out of thin air, one hand on the polished titanium-gold pole, and a heady murmur passes through the crowd.

A hundred hungry eyes are on her as she circles the pole in five lazy strides. Inej cradles their admiration, holds it in the bowl of her palm, then devours it. Here she is a queen on her throne, a warrior on the battlefield. Here she is her own fantasy.

The routine builds slowly. A few sly undulations of her hips. Elegant fingers tease the buttons of her suit, skimming up the outside of her leg, down the curve of her neck. She wraps a hand around the unforgiving pole, warm from the heat of the lights, the heat of other dancers, and swings herself up in one perfect arc. For a moment, it seems as if she’ll fall, her legs spread-eagle and hands releasing. The audience sucks in a sharp breath—the sound carrying over the music.

Then, her legs are twisted around the pole and she hangs suspended several feet in the air. She closes her eyes and focuses on her body, on the press of the pole between her legs, the air against her skin, the thrum of the music.

Inej arrives.

“ _Take me to a river, Steal a kiss when I'm lost in the mist”._

Everything pulls in, both tight and loose, as she moves around the pole like a river around a rock. Inej is a shadow at dawn, a reed in the wind, the rolling purr of the ocean. All of it, her body and mind, the air and the pole, the slick beat of the song are an extension of one self. Inej.

She draws crowds like no other. Gravity thinks itself mighty until Inej takes to the pole. She brings it to heal without hesitation, without mercy. Nothing and no one would deny her, not even the thoughtless, gormless Earth. Here, she has wings.

Not meek or humble. Not submissive or broken.

Whole. Alive. Strong.

_Seven years earlier_

_It was the third anniversary of the day Per Haskell bought her indenture, of the day Kaz Brekker stole into her life and turned it upside down, turned it right side up. It was also the first anniversary of the Fjerda job._

_Sitting at her desk, fluorescent light pulsing painfully overhead, it all felt like a lifetime, a heartbeat ago. Between the mug of day-old coffee and half-eaten sandwich, scattered haphazardly on her desk, her casework glared at her, slit-eyed._

_Inej let out a breath, fingers pushed into the corners of her eyes, and reached for the nearest file._ Think of the girls. Think of the children. Think of all those fighters dragged across borders, across worlds, to be sold and bartered and beaten. _Inej pictured their faces, sallow with hunger and fear, and suddenly nine pm didn’t seem all that late to still be at the office._

_They were so underfunded, Inej regularly worked further into the night than she had at the Menagerie, or even later, in her time gathering information for the Dregs. Inej recalled the vow she swore a year ago, on the roof of the Fjerdan ambassador’s house._

_She would do everything in her power to fight the traffickers, the pimps and officials who traded in lives, in human beings. Inej Ghafa would bring their fetid empire crumbling to the ground if it was the last thing she did._

_Admittedly, she hadn’t thought it’d involve so much paperwork. Turns out justice is all red tape and bureaucracy._ Think of the girls. Think of the children, the fighters and lovers, the rebels and believers. _Every life she saved was worth all the sleepless nights, the hunger, the loneliness._

_At the edge of her desk, her phone lit up with a message from Jesper._

Wylan told me to ask if you’re coming tonight? It’s been ages since we saw you and we even managed to get Nina out for this one.

…

I know you might not feel up to it but we would really love to see you.

Let me know.

_She turned her phone over and stared back at the file in front of her. Inej didn’t want to ignore her friends. In fact, she desperately wanted to see them. Just the thought of Jesper’s easy smile, Wylan’s baby blues, Nina’s laugh made her ache to see them._

_Maybe Kaz’d be there too._

_Jes would have said, though, wouldn’t he? If Kaz were going to be there._

_The file in front of her was typical, all the stories so similar. Suli and Zemeni children stolen, to be traded on the Black Market alongside parem knockoffs and Grisha steel. Their files end up on Inej’s desk only after they’re found. When the Stadwatch raids an active brothel or sweatshop and rounds up the hapless survivors within. By the time she gets her hands on the files, their suffering has already been immense, their scars waxy and permanent. These are scars Inej, no matter how late she works, cannot erase._

_Still, Inej pores over the file, over every file on her desk. She will find homes and futures for these survivors. Though she cannot yet admit it, she sees herself in every one of their faces. She tells herself she could never stand by and watch children wander faithless, hopeless through the world. Kaz had been her lifeline in a torrid sea, she would be that life line for others._

_It was purpose enough. It helped her stitch the pieces of herself back together until she began, once again, to recognise the edges of herself. She hardened herself, whet a decades worth of trauma against the stone walls of magistrates courts, armed herself with knowledge of asylum and protections, rights and freedoms. Night after night, she fought for those invisible girls, confronting their demons, so she might avoid confronting her own._

_Light leaked from beneath her overturned phone and after a moment, dimmed again. She turned it over._

Inej.

_Kaz._

Let me know if you’re going to Jesper and Wylan’s tonight. I’m going to be near your office in half an hour, we can head over together.

If you want.

…

If that’s okay.

_Ignoring the fact he knew exactly where she’d be at half nine on a Friday night, she looked down at her oversized hoodie and slacks. The office had no dress code and Inej didn’t see the point in getting dressed up for her colleagues. The kids certainly didn’t care. No one cared. No one should care._

_The first time she wore a skirt after the Menagerie, she’d taken one step out her front door before some beanpole with a beard and baseball cap had catcalled her. Years in the company of Dirtyhands had given her the vocabulary to fling obscenities back at the bastard. But afterwards, she’d barely made it upstairs before hurling her guts up._

_It was his eyes, that lecherous gleam she thought she’d relegated to her nightmares. It was how men would always look at her, how they would always see her. Hot and wet and open. Nothing and no one, everything and everyone._

_Inej glanced at the dark screen of her phone and saw Kaz’s bitter coffee eyes, saw the way_ he _looked at her. Her mouth drew into a thin line, pressed tight against the ache in her throat. The phone was back on it’s face and the file back in her hands when the clock struck ten, then eleven, then midnight._

Present

It’s only when she begins to undress that the audience remembers where they are and that Inej is still fully clothed. Their attention is suddenly hungrier, impatient and needy, but Inej is a tease. They’ll have to wait, she will not be rushed.

With the pole caught between the bend of her right knee and her left thigh, she pulls off the jacket. It drops to the floor without ceremony and is followed shortly by the dull thud of her cufflinks, ornate little crow’s skulls, as they drop from her hands—first one, then the other.

You could be forgiven for forgetting they had just seen every creamy inch of Natalie’s fine figure with how the audience strains to watch Inej peel back the layers of her suit, revealing a slender wrist here, a delicate collarbone there. Her shirt comes open around her neck and the audience holds its breath.

She keeps them there.

Waiting.

Those hungry, awe-struck eyes watch her as she twists and drives her body around the titanium-gold mast with effortless precision. They drink down every movement of her legs, her arms, her torso. Slowly, Inej drops inch by inch toward the ground. Circling the pole, dripping toward the floor like sand in an hourglass.

The song slips by and she releases the pole, landing lightly on her feet. Inej’s fingers dance over the buttons of her trousers. This is the part they’ve been waiting for and now that its here, the tension swells like fruit ripening.

With excruciating care, Inej peels back the carmine garment to reveal the length of her thighs, the soft sweep of her calves. Every impossible inch of her shimmers, umber skin taut and smooth across the peaks and valleys of her body.

In a faultless pirouette, she twirls to the edge of the stage. Then, she dips into a backward cartwheel that has her thighs wrapped around the pole five feet above the ground.

It took years to master this kind of strength.

Not the muscles straining in her core nor those in her thighs, pressing almost painfully into the pole. But the strength to be adored, to be loved and lusted after without vanishing. This is her battlefield, her throne, and she is determined to stay. She gets to decide her limits and she gets to decide when to push them, how to push them, who pushes them.

The shirt is the last thing to go.

Between movements through the air, she releases one button at a time, from collar to navel. When she lengthens her spine, bowing backwards, she catches the pole in waiting hands and lets the garment slide down her stretched arms, pooling around her wrists. All it takes is the slightest slip of her hands and it drops to the floor, a dollop of cream on the stage.

Inej holds the pose. She is almost completely vertical, stretched the length of the pole, pointed toes to the ceiling and fingers to the floor, back arched and stomach taut. A shimmer of a woman, coiled and curved and controlled. More dream than reality, more fantasy than fact. A phantasmagoria of her own making, to be consumed at her leisure, at her whim, for her pleasure.

The thrill of the performance races through her and she closes her eyes. Swinging her legs down and around, using the momentum to bring her spiralling down the pole, Inej begins the final movements of her dance. The finale involves a combination of backbreaking contortions that never fail to make audiences gasp in delight. She may as well be a ribbon of smoke, a whisper of wind for the way her body twists through the air.

When her feet touch the stage, the roar of applause is deafening and a flurry of kruge follows—confetti caught in a breeze.

Through the commotion of bodies and bills, Inej spies a pair of coffee-black eyes. A shiver runs down her spine at the heat in his gaze. Though he has already seen her performance (and more), he is enraptured by her. Not nothing nor no one, everything nor everyone. Just her. Just Inej. Inej. Inej. Inej.

_Eighteen months earlier_

_Inej hesitated. She hadn’t called ahead. Maybe he wasn’t even in, or maybe he had company, or maybe he wouldn’t want to see her. Maybe. Definitely. He definitely wouldn’t want to see her. Not after last time. She shouldn’t have come. Nausea rose in her belly, a churning sea of doubt._

_Movement beyond the door to his apartment jogged her out of the spiral._ You’ve thought about this: go inside, talk to him, make him listen. No armour. You owe him that much.

_The words of her therapist rang in her ears. “You cannot expect him to know what you’re thinking if you don’t communicate with him. Don’t write him off without at least trying. It wouldn’t be fair on you or him.”_

_Of course, her therapist didn’t know Kaz Brekker. Things were rarely fair where she and him were concerned. Things had never been as they should be. Things had never been easy._ You don’t want things to be easy. _She did. Inej wanted nothing more than for things to be easy. But she also wanted Kaz, and to have and keep Kaz was hard._

_She also knew that, however difficult Kaz made it for someone to love him, it was a trait they shared. Inej didn’t know how to give herself to another without vanishing. She had always been taken, stolen, broken into. Some part of her, a loathsome, weary, frightened little part, was simply waiting for another to take, steal, and break her again. And Kaz was not that man. he would not take nor steal nor break her. Inej must give herself to him and he must accept her._

_The possibility of rejection was debilitating._

_Then, her knuckles were pressed against the rough grain of the door, three decisive raps echoed down the corridor. Inej’s heart leapt into her throat. What if? What if? What if?_

_His eyes were as she remembered them, dark and warm and bottomless. They widened at the sight of her, scanning her from head to foot. He took in the furrow between her brows, the fear in her eyes. Inej, meanwhile, tried not to focus on the way that t-shirt clung to him, the curve of his bicep, or how those soft-looking sweats pooled on the floor around his bare feet._ They must be Jesper’s, _she thought, inanely._

“ _What—what’re you doing here?” Kaz’s abraded voice was uncertain, wary._

“ _We need to talk.” Inej pressed her palms, clammy with sweat, into her thighs and pictured the beam—her preferred apparatus. If she could perform a double somersault on a beam the width of her hand, then she could very well tell this man how she felt. “Can I come inside?”_

_Kaz nodded and stepped aside to let her pass. The landing was narrow so Inej couldn’t help but catch a whiff of him as she passed. He mustn't have showered that day because he smelled so perfectly like Kaz, like sweat and summer rain, Inej almost turned and buried her face in his chest. The instinct was powerful, bordering on frantic, it strengthened her resolve to see this through._

_It was clear from the state of his apartment that he was working on something big. Usually quite a tidy person, caught in the midst of some scheme Kaz Brekker invariably lost sight of his living conditions. The kitchen counter was strewn with empty take away containers and unwashed mugs of coffee. From her spot in the doorway to the kitchen, Inej could just see into the living area, which looked almost as bad._

_Kaz ran a hand through his crow-black hair and said, “I wasn’t expecting anyone today. I’m sorry about the mess.”_

“ _That’s not—I didn’t—” Inej shook her head. She hadn’t come to chastise him. “Don’t worry about it. I guess I should have called.”_

“ _No, no I’m glad you’re here.” The look he gave her then was so sincere, Inej had to look away. “Do you want anything to drink? I have—er… I have coffee or water. Or kvas?”_

_When Kaz turned to rifle through his fridge, Inej let out a breath and tried to relax her shoulders. Why was this so difficult? It was just Kaz. She could do this. He’d said it himself, he was glad she came._

“ _Water would be good, thanks.” She mustered a smile as he handed her the glass. It was cold and slick against her palm, a welcome relief against the flush that had taken residence in her body. “So—what’re you working on?”_

_It wasn’t what she’d meant to ask but looking at him now, at the handsome lines of his face—more gaunt than when she’d last seen him—Inej was floundering._

_He sensed it, she knew, but he answered her anyway. “I bought that place, down on the Lid. I’m converting it into a bar.”_

_That wasn’t what she thought he was going to say. For one, it sounded like a legitimate business. And secondly, it didn’t sound like something that would hurt Pekka Rollins. There were only two things Kaz had ever shown interest in, kruge and destroying venture capitalist and con-artist, Pekka Rollins. This must be a very lucrative venture indeed._

“ _Do you have investors?”_

“ _He likes to think of himself that way, yes,” Kaz smiled. It was a small thing, but it was there, unmistakable. Inej knew who before he said it. “Jesper’s going in on this with me. If we lose, we’ll lose together.”_

“ _This, finally, is an investment worth his kruge.” It was out before she could think twice._

_Old words, spoken around panic and heartache, echoed between them. He’d called her that too, once. An investment._

“ _Inej.” On his lips, her name was a question, an answer, a prayer, and a curse. How had they gotten here? So far from the shore?_

_She hadn’t planned what she was going to say, only that she had to say something. Here, with him standing on the other side of the kitchen island watching her, Inej scrambled for the words that would fix this, fix them, fix everything._

_But no. She didn’t need to fix them. All she needed to do, all she could do, was give him her side of the story. Inej needed to relinquish her armour._

Present

His eyes track her descent, greedy and meticulous.

Where once Inej would have cowered or raged at the unguarded intent in Kaz’s gaze, now she exalts in it. _How far they have come_ , she thinks, _to admire each other so brazenly._ They are children no longer.

Back in the green room, he finds her wrapped in a silk robe and tugging her hair free from its knot. The thick braid uncoils and swings loose between her shoulder blades. Their eyes meet in the mirror and Kaz closes the distance between them in three long strides. He’s suddenly ravenous. Okay, not suddenly. He is _still_ ravenous. With his next exhale, her braid is wrapped twice around his fist and he uses it to tilt her head back. The motion lengthens her neck deliciously.

“My darling Inej. You delightful, intoxicating woman.” His words are a damp promise, spoken into the arch of her neck. He follows them up with the feather light trace of his lips. The illusion of a kiss, to distract her from the flutter of his fingers tracing idle circles over her ribs. “I didn’t think it was possible.”

“What?” She gasps, arching into his hand and carding her fingers through his hair. Inej pulls hard enough to sting, dragging a hiss from between his teeth.

His hands are urgent, palming hot lines over the silk covering her stomach, ribs, sternum. Inej shivers as Kaz grazes his knuckles over her peaked nipple, still breathing hotly against her ear. There’s a deliberateness to his movements, as if she were made of porcelain, as if the fantasy of her threatens to vanish at any moment. She pushes back against him to remind him of her presence, to remind him and remind her, that she isn’t going anywhere.

“I didn’t think it was possible to want you more. You were—you are completely divine. I don’t believe in the gods but _saints,_ Inej, I believe in you.”

He sounds distraught, distracted, debauched, a man undone. She did that, she, Inej. She made Kaz Brekker, Bastard of the Barrel, unravel into this gasping, cursing flush of a man. There’s nothing like it.

“Say it again.”

“What?” His eyes clear for a moment as he looks down at her.

Against her palm, his cheek is hot and slightly rough with the days stubble growing in. Inej savours the sensation, the defined edge of his jaw, and turns her face over her shoulder to look at him. The abyssal depths of his eyes threaten to swallow her whole and for a beat she finds she cannot look away. Then, he licks his lip and suddenly she’s fixated elsewhere.

“My name.”

“Inej.” He kisses the corner of her mouth. “Inej, Inej, Inej, Inej.”

She watches his mouth form the word, the way he begins smiling around it the more he says it. A shudder passes through her when his palm opens, warm and solid against the flat of her stomach, and his other hand cups her bicep before trailing down her side.

In the heat of the moment, they linger, breathing the same air. His arm a steadying weight around her waist and her hand cupping his cheek. They sink into each other, impossibly slow or impossibly fast, neither can tell. Pressed so closely against him, Inej can feel Kaz trembling with need, it shivers across her skin and pools sweet and syrupy in her core.

She wants this, she wants him, and Inej finds there is no joy greater, no elixir more intoxicating than the push and pull of mutual attraction. Not of wanting and _taking_ but wanting and being given, of wanting and being wanted in return. The press of him through their clothes, his talented fingers, and utterly sinful mouth do not pick her apart so much as hold, cradle, nourish her.

_One year earlier_

_With the keys to the club in her hands, Inej felt like a new woman. This, all this, was hers. Inej looked up at the sign over the door,_ The Highwire _, wrought in sweeping strokes. It hadn’t felt real until now._

_After quitting her job finding homes and families for trafficked children, Inej had started teaching dance to survivors of abuse. Dance was Kaz’s suggestion. It was a testament to how well he knew her that she hadn’t realised how much she missed dancing and tumbling until she found herself back in a studio. Slowly, arduously Inej reacquainted herself with her body. It did wonders for their sex life, something she teased Kaz about endlessly—so much for his very selfless suggestion._

_But she wanted a way to raise money for the cause, to provide funding for her old employers so that others like her wouldn’t have to burn out and quit, so that more concrete preventative action could be taken, to support progressive officials and progressive policies._

“ _You gonna stand out there all day or what?” Jesper jarred her out of her reverie. “I’m never helping you with anything again. Not even being paid—” He grumbled over the stack of chairs in his arms._

“ _Oh hush up, you podge! I’m paying you with a free lifetime membership.”_

“ _I’m not sure I like that idea, Inej,” Wylan murmured, standing beside her and joining her in looking up at the sign. “I’m never going to be able to drag him away from this place.”_

_Inej smiled fondly and shook her head. “He’s only got eyes for you, Wylan.”_

“ _Oh, ho! What’s going on out here? Are you trying to steal my husband? Why’s he blushing like that, then?” Jesper came storming out, balled fists at his narrow hips. “I’ll fight you for him. You know I will.”_

“ _No one wants to see you get your ass handed to you, Jesper.”_

_At the sound of his voice, Inej turned and smiled. Although the words were directed at Jesper, Kaz was watching her. She allowed herself a moment to admire him. He was wearing a suit, sharp edges and fine lines pulled together by that confidence of his._

“ _I see you came dressed to help set up the club,” Jesper jibed, shucking his sweater off._

_Kaz smiled crookedly and tapped his bad knee with the end of his cane. “I’m just an observer. Moral support, if you will.”_

“ _You’ve never been moral anything.”_

_Inej ignored Jesper and stepped within a hands breadth of Kaz. This close, she had to crane her neck to look him in the eye. He wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him with a gentle pressure. Inej pressed her fingers into the hard planes of his chest, smoothing them up to his shoulders until she could twine her arms around his neck. He smelled clean, like fresh sheets and peppermint._

_Breaking eye contact, Kaz looked over her head at the sign. “It looks good, a solid investment.”_

“ _You think so?”_

“ _Yeah, I do. I—” Kaz hesitated. He did so, so rarely that Inej found herself holding her breath for his next words. The hesitation evidence of his affection, the care he took to say the right thing, in the right way, at the right time. He hadn’t always been so careful. His gaze was open and tender, his words deliberate. “I’m so proud of you.”_

_Inej felt the heat of tears prick her eyes and curled her fingers more tightly in the soft hair at the nape of his neck. This man. If only everyone could see this side of him, his brows furrowed in concern. Kaz reached up to wipe a stray tear from her cheek, his palm hot against her skin. She covered his hand with her own and leaned into his touch._

“ _These are happy tears, right?”_

_The best she could do was nod, rapidly, and rise onto her tiptoes. Standing like this she was still several inches shy of his mouth, which they’d decided was for the best. A perfect compromise between their shared trauma. The disparity in their heights was so great, their kisses would always be a joint venture, a collaboration, a deal._

_Kaz leaned down, hand at her jaw, and brought his lips to hers. In the slant of his mouth Inej saw stars. His kisses were thorough, patient, greedy. Because of course they were. Dirtyhands always took his time, and he always took his due._

Present

His eyes flutter shut and he exhales into her mouth. “Inej, can we make a bargain?”

“Kaz!” Her smile splits her face as a breathy laugh escapes her. “Now?” Inej rocks back against him to emphasise her point and is rewarded with a strangled groan and his hand tightening on her stomach. “That’s what you’re thinking about?”

“No—yes.” The heat of his exhale, his lips on the skin beneath her ear steals her breath. “It’s related, I promise.”

“What are the terms of this bargain, Mr. Brekker?” Inej curls her fingers back into his hair, where she prefers to keep them and smiles when he raises an eyebrow at her.

“It’s a simple exchange. Perfectly common place, ordinary, really. It goes by a few names, involves some convoluted rituals, some promises, jewellery.”

“Kaz,” Inej warns, laughter lacing her voice.

Abruptly, he turns her in his arms and she is startled by the sincerity in his gaze. With a brush of knuckles, he pushes a stray lock of hair from her brow, tracing the curve of her ear, the line of her jaw. Kaz’s eyes follow the trail of his fingers.

“Inej Ghafa, will you marry me?”

The question isn’t in and of itself unexpected. They have discussed the possibility of marriage, the myriad legal and economic advantages of tying the knot. Now, though, Inej feels a stillness steal over her. The background murmur of the club, their syncopated breathing, the roar of her heart, drop into a dull pulse.

This isn’t like vanishing, not at all. This feels like arriving, like stepping out of the shadows and into the sunlight, like turning your face to the moon and basking in her glow.

The furrow between his brows tells her she should say something, anything, before he thinks she’s vanishing on him. Inej hasn’t vanished in years, not in his arms, not under his watch but this is different. Kaz is asking to claim her, he’s asking for a stake in her future, for a place in her life—for ever, until death do us part.

“You still with me?” He whispers.

It’s the edge of panic in his eyes, the way his hands pull away from her, releasing her, that has Inej moving again, sinking into him anew. One hand is curled in the lapel of his jacket and the other in his hair, before he draws his next breath.

“Yes,” she says and his sigh of relief makes her dizzy with affection. Kaz drops his head, pressing his forehead to hers and cups the back of her neck. “I’m still with you. You strike a hard bargain, Kaz Brekker, but of course, of course I will marry you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if anyone, literally anyone, would care to see kaz's pov in this universe lmk! i will take any excuse to write more of these messy, traumatised babies getting the help they need and the recoveries they deserve.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> after kaz brekker takes down pekka rollins brick by brick and discovers that revenge didn’t make him whole again, he has to figure out how to heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all your comments and kudos on part one of this fic <3  
> now, as a reward, enjoy kaz's arduous recovery (it's worth it, i promise)!
> 
> p.s. i will never be over kaz and jesper's relationship, they make my heart HURT. is there such a thing as fraternal pining? cause if there is, that's what they're doing, and it is too much. that is all.

Present

Kaz wakes to the feeling of the sun slanting low and long across the room. It warms his back, the sheet pooling in the dip of his waist. He doesn’t mind. It’s the second best way to wake up. The first being to the sound of her soft little snores. (Asleep is the only time Kaz is quieter than her, a fact she faces with all her usual grace). This morning, however, Inej is not here.

The other side of their king size bed is empty and Kaz is alone. It’s tradition. Apparently. Kaz is not a man of tradition but Inej had insisted and he has never been very good at denying her. So, here he is. Alone. In this king size bed.

Stretching out an arm, he runs his fingers over the sheet where she would be and closes his eyes. If he tries very hard, he can almost feel the heat of her body. When he presses his face into her pillow, it smells like her, like the geranium perfume she started wearing when she stopped hiding.

With a small sound, not a groan, he is not yet that old or stiff, he sits up and runs a hand over his face. Through his fingers, he cannot avoid seeing the suit hung up on the back of their bedroom door. It’s finer than anything else he owns, except perhaps that watch Jesper gifted him a year ago. It’s black, of course, and immaculately tailoured. Kaz has always dressed with particular care; he learned early that an inordinate amount of power lies in simply looking the part. It’s all one grand performance.

Today, though, Kaz doesn’t want to perform. Today, above all days, he must simply be. The thought is both terrible and wonderful at once. It has taken years to become someone who can simply be, neither irredeemable nor perfect. Human, is what they call it or so he’s heard. It makes him feel better to scoff at this as if he were still the boy who worshipped the monstrous.

If only that boy could seem him now. Kaz smiles and shakes his head. Maybe he’s losing it. He is, he thinks, long overdue insanity. Either way, he doesn’t let potential fits of madness stop him from getting out of bed. The shower awaits.

_Sixteen years earlier_

_The day Jordie Rietveld died was the day Kaz Brekker was born, spilling into the harbour swaddled in grief. His brother’s death taught him the finer points of shame, of remorse, with violence and vengeance his only coping mechanisms. It was easier to be angry than to forgive, so Kaz stayed angry. In fact, Kaz cultivated his anger, nursed and fed it until he could not think, see, or breathe without it._

_When Jordie told him about the job, the first since Hertzoon, Kaz was wary. He was nine years old but already trust had curdled on his tongue, sour and useless, a sign of weakness. His brother’s mind, however, was made up. The bridge they’d claimed as their own was narrow and damp, fetid with the smells of the desperate, and Jordie was too proud to stay in such conditions long. The city couldn’t be allowed to win._

_The night was a blur—a sign of trauma, he would later learn. All Kaz remembers are flashes: boys in balaclavas, an alarm blaring, sirens wailing, raised voices, the shivery, sickening fear of near-death, and his brother’s wet rasp as a knife slid into his neck._

_In retrospect, Kaz didn’t think the boy-in-charge had meant for anyone to get killed. But his brother was dead regardless. Haphazardly covering their tracks, they dragged him to the lip of the canal and tipped him in. The big one held a knife to Kaz’s throat as they did it, pressed it in until he promised them his silence._

_They bundled into a beaten-up car as Kaz listened to the water. Dark and deep and terrible._

_When he jumped in, the shock of it, the cold of a Kerch winter, stole his breath but the current was slow, easy. He followed it, mad with grief and oblivious to death, until he found Jordie. His limp body was caught on a barge, rocking against its stern to the beat of the canal._

_Collapsing onto a nearby jetty, Kaz pressed trembling fingers to the wound at Jordie’s neck. The bleeding had stopped. His skin, his clothes, his eyes, the world, everything cold and wet and still. He had never prayed, not really, but there, hunched over the rapidly cooling body of his big brother, Kaz prayed to every god he could think of for Jordie’s heart to beat just once more, for him to take just one more breath._

_The gods were indifferent to his prayers._

_The watery light of dawn was leaking into the sky when Kaz heard movement on the canal. He was struck by the sudden and irrational conviction that someone was coming to take Jordie away. Kaz dug his fingers in, holding onto Jordie’s stiff shoulders, and pressed his face into his chest. Praying, no begging, to be left alone with his brother’s corpse._

_His grief was an injured animal, frightened and dangerous. He was sure, surer than he’d ever been of anything else, that it could and would kill him. If it didn’t, if it saw fit to let him suffer, he would tame it, call it vengeance and make it useful, surgical and calculated. He would wield it with great care and to great effect._

_For a long time, he had thought of himself as stronger for all the ways he had been broken. Eventually, he learned all the ways this made him weak._

Present

Shirt open around his throat and cuffs undone, Kaz stands in front of the full length mirror in their room. The sun is a little higher in the sky now, falling hot and heavy through the open window. His favourite record plays to cover the sound of his rising butterflies and the sound of his cursing.

“Fuck,” he tells no one in particular. _Why is this so difficult?_

The piece of paper—okay napkin—he wrote what he wanted to say on is crumpled with how many times he’s fisted it in frustration. All the words are there, he just needs to say them. She’s not even here right now. No one is. He’s alone.

Kaz exhales.

“Okay,” he stands a little taller, pulls his shoulders back and looks his reflection square in the eye. “Inej, darling—no,” he shakes his head. No pet names. Jesper’s going to be there for Ghezen’s sake. “Inej. I promised you once that I would always come for you, that if I couldn’t walk, I would crawl to you and...”

He blinks down at the napkin. _Had he really said that? Knives drawn, pistols blazing?_ He can’t say that. What kind of—no, he can’t repeat that. Though, mind you, he still means it.

Okay, again.

“Inej, I promised you once that I would always come for you, that if I couldn’t walk, I would crawl to you and that together, we’d face whatever the world saw fit to throw at us. I didn’t know then what to do with everything I felt, everything I saw when I looked at you, except fight. Fighting was all I knew, I was convinced it was all I _wanted_ to know, so it was what I offered you. But, my Inej, because you are _my_ Inej— _greedy_ —you asked for more. You deserved—you deserve more than my violence, you deserve my—” Kaz cannot get the word past the syrupy ache in his throat.

Neither the word nor the sensation are new. Kaz isn’t a stranger to this feeling any more, it rises every time he thinks a little too hard about Inej, but the impulse to run from it is still strong. He swallows, carefully. Takes several deep breaths, turns from the mirror, and faces the sun.

The windowsill is just deep enough for Inej to sit on. This had been his only condition when they were buying the house. Inej had laughed. _Surely he cared about the number of stairs?_ Not as much as the windowsill, he insisted.

He looks at the windowsill now.

The irony of the situation does not escape him. Inej would be the best person to ask for advice in this. He supposes, begrudgingly, that he’s maybe become a little dependent on her. A little dependence though, he has learned, is okay. A little dependence is, it turns out, a relationship. Which is what he has. With Inej.

He smiles, then. Grins, really, because this feeling is also familiar to him now. This warmth that spreads throughout his chest, filling in and washing over all the cracks in his broken and mishealed soul. It is his prize and his price. He would not have it any other way.

In exchange for this feeling, which he owes to her, he will figure this thing out. Realistically, he knows she doesn’t really care what he says. They have said so many words to each other over the years, good and bad and terrible, these are only a few hundred more. Nevertheless, he shall endeavour to make her smile and laugh and maybe blush a little too.

Thus incentivised, Kaz begins again. “Inej.”

_Seven years earlier_

_Soft, yellow light from the van Eck house spilled onto the street and music, Nina’s choice by the sounds of it, echoed through the windows. Behind closed curtains, Kaz could see his silhouetted friends moving around. It was almost inviting. Almost. He pictured their reaction to his arrival and recoiled._

_This was a bad idea. He should never have let Jesper talk him into coming. Inej’s plan was better._

_The next bus was in ten minutes. He could be home, far from forced merriment, before anyone was any the wiser._

_Before Kaz could get more than two steps from the front door, it opened. Jesper stood in the doorway holding a large bin bag aloft, smiling at something Kaz hadn’t heard or seen._

“ _Kaz?” The smile widened, then slipped slightly. “Kaz, what the hell are you doing out here? You look half frozen.”_

_The sight of Jesper, in a button-up the colour of sunflower petals, had Kaz slumping onto the hood of Wylan’s car. Jes frowned and closed the door. After only a moments hesitation, he also dropped the bag and sat beside his beleaguered best friend—a careful few inches between their shoulders._

_They sat in silence for thirty full seconds. “This is nice and all, really—” Jesper threw Kaz a grin. “I’m really glad you came. But… could we move inside? I won’t be able to feel my hands for much longer.”_

“ _Did you hear from Inej?”_

_Jesper frowned at his legs. “I texted her almost an hour ago but got nothing. Are you worried about her?”_

“ _Maybe.” She’d done this before, just shut everyone out, but there weren’t any of the usual warning signs this time. Kaz shook his head. “It’s probably nothing.”_

“ _I’ll be in town tomorrow, I’ll take her out for lunch—check on her.” When the silence stretched, Kaz still achingly quiet, Jesper looked at him. “Is there another reason we’re sitting out here? And not in my boyfriend’s very nice, centrally-heated house.”_

_Kaz swallowed. There was something else, something that’d been building for a while. It felt dangerous and not in the way that kept him alive. It felt dangerous in a way that might kill him._

_His therapist seemed to think_ not _talking about it would kill him. He wasn’t so sure._

_From the look in his eye, Kaz knew Jesper was formulating another question, one that might unravel what little calm he was clinging to. It was a habit he’d picked up from Wylan, this talking things out. It was irritating. Dr. Baas would approve._

“ _This year—my—it’s—” Kaz scowled at his gloved hands, balled into fists. He couldn’t get the words past this knife-wound in his throat, it felt raw and bloody, unhealed. Beside him, Jesper waited. It was his stillness that got to Kaz, in the end. If Jesper could be still, could wait for him to spit these words out, then Kaz would. He pictured a contract, Jesper’s stillness for this piece of him. “My—my brother would have turned twenty-two this year.”_

_To his credit, Jesper recovered quickly, looking up at the overcast sky and not at Kaz like they both knew he wanted. “Jordie?”_

“ _Yeah.” Hearing his brother’s name in someone else’s mouth did strange things to him. In Jesper’s mouth was almost too much. Kaz closed his eyes and let go of the breath he’d been holding—for a year, maybe longer. “I don’t know… I’ve never talked to anyone about him.”_

_If Jesper was surprised he didn’t show it. “What was he like?”_

“ _He—” Kaz let out a shuddering breath, it clouded in front of him. “He was brave, and—” His throat was closing up around the words, around the memories it took to form the words. Panic, syrupy and hot and churning, pooled in his gut. “And he was kind. But—”_

“ _But?” Jesper prompted._

“ _But—” Though he tried to focus on the words, on the sound of his breathing, Kaz felt his thoughts slide away from him. He was going to be sick, everything inside him was watery and trembling._ Why had he brought up Jordie? Why were they talking about this? Why did Jesper care? Why did he? Why did it still hurt so much?

Wasn’t the end of Pekka Rollins supposed to have been the end of this too?

_He was spiralling, unwilling or unable to stop. Then, without warning Kaz got up, cane clutched in his hand by the shaft, weighted head ready to wield against the demons threatening to swallow him whole._

“ _Kaz.” Jesper’s voice was jarring, so different from the one inside his head—another brother, taunting and vengeful. “Hey, sit down. Let’s just sit.”_

_The silence that descended then was heavier than the last, smothering. Kaz let it pull him down until he was sitting again. Together they tolerated it, getting colder by the minute._

“ _It was my fault.” The words were so quiet, Kaz wasn’t sure he’d even said them. He was nine years old again, drowning in despair, drowning in shame. It had been his fault._ It had been, hadn’t it? _“It’s my fault he’s dead.”_

“ _I don’t think so.”_

_He couldn’t bring himself to look at Jesper. Something told him that if he did, he’d never be sane again. “It was. It is. He was trying to protect me and I—”_

“ _Look at me.” There was cool command in Jesper’s voice, like he’d been waiting for Kaz to say these things, prepared for it. The possibility of this frightened him. “It was not your fault. You were a kid. I know—I know I wasn’t there and I didn’t know Jordie but I know what having a brother means.” He gave Kaz a meaningful look, then. “It means taking that bullet, taking that fall, risking it all, over and over again. If you want to do right by him, you’ll live, Kaz. Live.”_

_This was a lifeline, a floatation device cast into an unforgiving sea but Kaz was a boy again, drowning in grief, drowning in guilt, drowning. And because Dirtyhands was still stronger then he, the Bastard of the Barrel said the first cruel thing he could think of, “place your bets on me and see where it gets you. Losing is all you’re good at, remember.”_

_Jesper’s sigh was impossibly weary, though not without humour. “Maybe I’m delusional, or maybe I’m just a hopeless optimist, but I’m confident about this one. Kaz, I will always bet on you.”_

_Dirtyhands had nothing, no comeback quick or vicious enough, so they sat in silence until Jesper returned to the house, leaving the door open—just a crack._

Present

The quiet of the house is resolutely shattered by the arrival of the Fahey’s. Or rather, by the arrival of Jesper Fahey. Wylan is an unobtrusive presence by comparison. Kaz cannot begrudge their presence, however disruptive, he did after all ask them to be here. They also brought lunch.

“Getting cold feet yet?” Jesper smacks Kaz on the shoulder with a wink, before unpacking various containers filled with rich-smelling dhals and curries. He carefully spoons a bit of each into three bowls and rummages around in the cupboards for something to plate the naan on. “Need a pep talk? Sage advice? Back rubs?”

“We both know, if I were getting cold feet, it would be Wylan I’d ask for advice.” He tries for dry but his smile comes too readily to fool anyone, least of all Jesper.

“You don’t have cold feet. Do you?” Kaz thinks he should be offended by the surprise in Jesper’s voice. “You look… happy.”

“Why wouldn’t he look happy, Jes?” Wylan frowns up at his husband, standing at the sink filling the kettle. “Stop being a nuisance.”

Jesper only grins at him, “I’m being _thorough,_ in my duties. Negotiating cold feet is one of the most important—I checked. And I seem to remember doing a pretty good job warming yours, once upon a time.”

“Well, figurative cold feet aside, how was your morning?” Wylan turns his attention to Kaz, ignoring Jesper’s shameless flirting. “Strange, I imagine, without her here.”

“It _is_ strange without her here,” Jesper buts in, grabbing a bowl and sitting at the kitchen table with a sigh. “It doesn’t suit you, or the house for that matter. I wouldn’t recommend repeating the experience. It’s a stupid tradition, too.”

“She insisted,” Kaz reminds him. “And it’s not all bad, I’ll have to get used to waking up without her some mornings anyhow.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Wylan smiles and sits beside Jesper, who’s already halfway through his lunch. “She’s off right after you come back. I forgot.”

Kaz nods. He hasn’t forgotten.

Though he is proud beyond measure, the prospect of three months without her is… unpleasant. It can’t be helped, she is a rising star and people all over the continent have paid good kruge to see her perform. He is not so selfish as to deny them the chance. No, that’s not right. He is that selfish, it is _her_ he cannot deny.

After they finish eating, Jesper and Wylan help Kaz get ready. Though it is not a group activity by any stretch of the imagination, they potter around, helping with this and that as he buttons his shirt, does up his cufflinks, shrugs on his jacket.

Wylan brushes unseen lint from the shoulders, cheeks rosy as he murmurs, “you look very handsome, Kaz.”

The blush spreads and deepens at the look Jesper throws him over Kaz’s shoulder, eyebrow raised. Then, pulling the slip of an undone bow tie through his long fingers, Jesper approaches Kaz. He lifts it, waiting.

Kaz nods for him to go on. The moment stretches as Jesper threads the tie under the collar of his shirt, fingers brushing the nape of Kaz’s neck. Except a slight hitch of breath, Kaz doesn’t react. Satisfied, Jesper takes his time on the tie, looking between the knot forming in his hands and Kaz’s bitter chocolate eyes. They’re both remembering all the fights, the harsh words and regrettable actions, that led them to this.

Briefly, his vision doubles and it is Jordie standing before him. When heat pricks his eyes, Jesper tugs on the tie, pulling Kaz out of his daze and making sure the tie is secure. Neither of them is ready to let go just yet.

“Thank you, Jes. Not just for this,” he gestures between them vaguely. “I never thought I’d get this far and I wanted to say—I should have said already, really— that I wouldn’t have, if not for you.”

“Of course. Anything for my favourite bastard.” Jesper clears his throat with a laugh and straightens the bowtie one final time. Kaz almost smiles as colour rises to Jes’ cheeks. “I hope you know how happy I am for you, Kaz. You deserve this, all of this. You and Inej.”

There is nothing he can say to that. So, Kaz takes a deep breath and puts a hand on his brother’s neck. He pulls him in, wraps his arms around Jesper’s narrow shoulders and holds him for several long seconds. The embrace is brief but fierce, Jesper returning the pressure with a shuddering breath.

Knowing how far he has come, the depths from which he has had to crawl to reach even so small a gesture of affection, Kaz savours the moment. In the smell of Jesper’s skin, the heat of his palm, his soughing sigh, Kaz is not drowning but soaring.

_Three years earlier_

_No one would blame Kaz for thinking things were going well._

_The moon was low in the sky, rising out of the winking twilight, and he was lying shoulder to shoulder with Inej. They’d spent the whole evening on the roof, just the two of them, gazing at the sky. If Kaz were forced to pick a way to die, this would have been it._

_The warmth of her body was subtle, just the barest whisper where they touched from shoulder to elbow to hand. Kaz without his gloves, bare skin on bare skin. It set his body alight. Pinpricks of sensation raced up and down his limbs as he shifted his hand ever so slightly, a graze of his knuckles over the back of her hand. She mirrored the movement and soon, their hands were palm to palm. Neither looked at the other as their fingers entwined._

_Kaz’s heart gave a desperate lurch because it knew what was coming, the bargain he’d made with himself, and was bent on betraying him. Tonight, Kaz was going to make his move, he was ready, and he was sure she was too._

_He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, focusing on the rasp of her callouses, the flutter of her pulse under his thumb. Then, he turned a little, sat up a little, and looked down at the girl of his dreams._

_Wide and impossibly dark, he found her eyes already watching him. She was spectacularly beautiful._

_Without thinking, he reached out to trace a finger along the high curve of her nose but stopped, waiting. “Go on,” she said. Kaz let out a shuddering breath as he followed the contours of her nose, the sharp edge of her jaw, the full sweep of her lip. When she opened her mouth, sighing against the pad of his thumb, an animal sound escaped him—at once soft and demanding._

_Lost in the fathomless depths of her eyes, Kaz cupped her jaw and leaned over._

_In retrospect, he understood where he went wrong, could pinpoint the moment he fucked up and she slipped out of his grasp._

_It was easy to forget how much bigger he is than her, how much stronger, despite his knee. That night, caught in the heat of her breath, he forgot. Hindsight is of no use to him._

_Kaz captured her mouth with his. It was still open, gasping at his touch, and so the kiss was hot and wet far quicker than he had planned. No matter. Kaz could improvise. He curled his tongue into her mouth, the taste of her drawing a groan from deep in his chest._

_It was not their first kiss but it was the first kiss he felt prepared to take further. The thrill of myriad possibilities made him light-headed. There was so much he wanted to do, so many ways he wanted to worship her. Inej. The girl of his dreams._

_And she was kissing him back. It was tentative but it was reciprocal. Not until more of his weight settled over her, their bodies slotting together, did she vanish._

_He noticed the change immediately and reared back._ No. Oh, no.

_Inej let out a keening sound, her body taught and arched against him, but her eyes… Her eyes were glassy, dazed, distant. This was not the girl of his dreams. Fear welled bright and clear in her gaze the further he drew back from her, dousing Kaz in cold water. This was the fear Tante Heleen had beaten into her, the fear of falling short, of displeasing a client._

What had he done?

“ _Inej.” His voice was all breath. She blinked up at him, vacant. “Inej, darling, you with me?”_

How could he have been so reckless, so thoughtless? _This was unforgivable. That he would be the one to ruin what they had, he’d long made peace with, but that this was how he would do it was humiliating._

_A familiar, sick kind of panic rose and with it, came the cold. Every place his body still touched hers was suddenly too much. Inky water lapped at his thighs, his waist, his neck. He was drowning and the only way to save himself was to scramble back, scramble away from Inej. The girl of his dreams._

_He was dry-heaving onto the slats of the roof, when she whispered, “Kaz?” She was blinking blearily, body wracked with shivers and face ashen in the moonlight. “Kaz, I’m—I’m so sorry. I—”_

“ _Don’t you dare,” Kaz snarled, then winced at her stricken expression. “I’m the one who’s sorry. My god, Inej. I should have asked, I should have said something, anything.” Speaking suddenly became impossible._

“ _I don’t think I’m ready,” she said in a voice so small, Kaz felt his heart break at the sound._

“ _That’s okay, it’s okay. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”_

“ _You were ready,” Inej murmured. The anguish in her voice, in the way she curled in on herself, was unbearable. “I’m sorry.”_

“ _Stop, Inej.” He wanted to touch her, his fingers itching to wipe away the tears now rolling down her cheeks. Oh, he could laugh at the irony. What a sorry, worthless wretch she’d chosen to love. “Look at me, Inej.” She did. “We have a bargain, remember? However long, however many setbacks and hiccups and hurdles, we do this together. Brick by brick.”_

_The silence enveloped them, dragging his words, unanswered, into the night._

Present

They arrive at the park just in time to hear Anika bark something at Jack, her latest recruit, who is tottering under the weight of an armful of flowers. They are, apparently, to be laid at the foot of the dais and _not_ around the chairs. Kaz sees Wylan wince at her tone but makes no move to interfere. Anika is fierce when she’s on a job, this is no different.

The dais is simple, a wooden structure, crowned with an arbour wreathed in flowering wisteria. Kaz walks to the little stage, assuming the flowers to be fake, and is pleasantly surprised to be greeted by their delicate aroma wafting on a breeze. For a moment, Kaz pictures Inej beneath it and is forced to swallow the tight knot that forms in his throat as a consequence.

He really needs to get a hold of himself.

The park isn’t particularly big but a ring of oak trees, dense with later summer foliage, offers the semblance of privacy. It had taken a while to settle on the venue. It is neither truly private nor defensible (Anika had objected simply for the risk to Kaz, notorious as he still is). Now though, standing amid swaying wildflowers, under the heat of the sun, Kaz is pleased with the choice. Theirs was never a traditional relationship—the previous night not withstanding—and danger had been their bedmate since the beginning. Besides, flaunting himself and his happiness in such a fashion is, he has decided, a sign of strength more than anything else.

When Anika comes over, clipboard in hand, Kaz is ready for whatever tasks he must complete to prepare for Inej’s arrival. There is not much left to be done, especially now that Jesper has made himself useful setting up chairs and scattering flower petals.

“Just greet the guests as they arrive and try not to ruin anything.”

Soon, the guests start arriving and Kaz finds he has his hands unpleasantly full. Naturally, he had a hand in crafting the guest list but the reality of having members of the Dregs here, shuffling about and mingling, is strange. Kaz is their boss and he has never, not really, been their friend. It was Inej who insisted they be invited. _Think about how many times they’ve saved your life? And mine, Kaz._ He had, he does think about that. It doesn’t make it any less awkward.

When he greets them, Pim and Rotty slap him on the back good-naturedly. This, too, is awkward. Though at least he no longer gets the urge to throttle them or bludgeon them with his cane. In fact, Kaz finds himself sliding easily into conversation with them, a knot of tension easing as he does. Eventually, Jesper saunters over and the conversation rapidly grows indecent.

Kaz is saved from having to think of a rejoinder to Rotty’s last lewd comment by the arrival of Colm Fahey, dressed in a very flattering, dark green suit. The older man smiles first at his son and then at Kaz, widely and without restraint, as he crosses toward them. Jesper bounds to meet him halfway, wrapping him in a long-limbed hug.

“Glad you could make it, Mr. Fahey,” Kaz nods, hands on his cane.

Colm gives him an assessing look, then says, “it’s not everyday I get invited to witness miracles.”

As always, Kaz is impressed by Mr. Fahey’s quiet dignity and as always, he works to quell his jealousy at the affection he shows his son. Since Jesper is not really Kaz’s brother and Colm not really his father, Kaz has no right to jealousy. It stabs at him, regardless.

Almost as if he senses the direction of his thoughts, Colm gives Kaz a knowing smile. “There will be many other days for mixed emotions. Today, let your joy reign. You have earned that much.”

The words carry him through the next half-hour as the last of the guests arrive. Among them, a few of Inej’s dancers and Kuwei, who made the trek from Ravka, by all accounts grumbling the whole way. He seems to brighten, however briefly, at the sight of Jesper, sobering again at a glance from Wylan. If nerves weren’t chewing up his insides, Kaz would be laughing.

Thankfully, all thoughts empty out of his head entirely when Nina, grinning from ear to ear and wrapped in silk the colour of fresh blood, appears between the trees. She gestures discretely to Anika, who in turn gestures to the quartet set up behind the dais. Music fills the air, twining with the smell of wisteria and the rays of the sun.

Kaz sucks in a breath when Wylan, standing on the dais beside him, nudges him gently but it’s rushed and shaky. He didn’t think it was possible to be sick from joy, so giddy it’s nauseating but here, watching the treeline like his life depends on it, he discovers that heady precipice.

Then, Inej breaks from the trees, one soft-slippered foot on the runner Anika rolled over the grass, and Kaz forgets where he is, who he is, what he’s doing here, everything. Breathing becomes irrelevant.

If he thought her beautiful before, he was a fool.

_Oh_ , he is a fool.

She smiles, like bottled starlight, and suddenly Kaz remembers.

_ One year earlier _

“ _What about this?” Kaz forwarded the job posting to Inej. A few seconds later, her phone, lying beside the puzzle spread on the coffee table between them, pinged._

_It’d been three weeks since Inej quit her job and they discovered that the yawning emptiness of unemployment didn’t suit her at all. Though Kaz tried to reassure her he easily provided for the both of them, she remained anxious, which in turn made him anxious. It was not his preferred state._

“ _What is this?” She peered down at the phone without lifting it. The messy bun she’d wrapped her hair into flopped forward, she batted it out of the way and said, “a dance studio?”_

_In an attempt at nonchalance, Kaz lifted one shoulder, “they’re looking for a dance instructor with experience working with vulnerable people.”_

_The suggestion wasn’t as casual as he was trying to make out. In fact, Kaz had been wanting to suggest Inej begin dancing again since before she quit her job, had gone as far as finding dance classes and studio’s near her apartment, but it never felt like the right time._

_Timing, Kaz knew, was paramount._

“ _I don’t know, Kaz.” Inej’s brow furrowed as she finally picked up her phone. “This isn’t the kind of job I’ve been looking for… I’m not even sure I’m a dancer any more, let alone a dance_ instructor _.”_

_Kaz held in his scoff._ Not a dancer any more? Seriously. _Music and movement were in her bones and if she’d forgotten that, then he really had his work cut out for him. Just last night, he’d come home to find her pirouetting around his living room as something tedious and classical droned in the background._

“ _The ad seems pretty informal. I think they just want someone who’s got some experience dancing and an inclination toward helping people through a recovery,” Kaz added, reaching for a piece of the puzzle. “Sending in an application can’t hurt.”_

_Of course, his shrewd Inej didn’t miss a thing. “Why’re you so invested in this job in particular?”_

“ _I just thought it looked like something you’d enjoy doing.”_

“ _I’m looking for a job, Kaz. Preferably one that lets me help—really help—people. Not a hobby.” She put the phone back down and hunched her shoulders in that way he recognised as a sign of her survivors guilt._

“ _You’re allowed to do something you enjoy, even if it doesn’t help people,” he said, quietly. When she glared at him, he glared right back. “Fortunately, this job_ also _involves helping people.”_

_They continued working on the puzzle in silence for a while, Inej getting up to replenish their tea once. When she sat back down on the floor across the table from Kaz, she sprawled out her legs and kicked him (gently) under the table._

“ _What is it?” He asked, squeezing the foot that was pressed against his thigh._

“ _Do you really think I could—should apply for this job?” Inej’s voice was small and she was watching her hands, fiddling with a corner piece._

“ _Hey, look at me,” he said, squeezing her foot again. Slowly, her dark eyes rose to meet his. “I think you should do whatever makes you happy. If that means ignoring this job posting, then ignore it. But… I do think you should start dancing again. Take classes or teach them, whichever. You miss it, I know you do.”_

“ _Maybe.” She rolled the puzzle piece over the tabletop, thinking. Beneath his fingers, Kaz felt her wiggle her toes and was not at all surprised when she graced him with an impish grin. “You’re not all bad, you know, Kaz Brekker.”_

Present

With every graceful step down the aisle, the afternoon sunlight plays over the delicate gold trim running the length of Inej’s veil. Although Kaz has already seen its constituent components, the veil, the slippers, the red fabric of the dress, he is not prepared for Inej dressed in the completed look.

The girl of his dreams.

Beneath the veil, which is as red as the geraniums scattered at Kaz’s feet, Inej’s hair is braided back in her preferred style. Unusually, however, a gold pendant rests against her forehead, below her hairline. It catches the light as she moves and is the only piece of jewellery she wears, besides the ring on her left hand.

Kaz knows that it is tradition among her people for brides to wear scores of bangles and anklets, to jangle as they walk, but she has abhorred chains and cuffs since the day she was stolen, enslaved, sold. Naturally, he told her she could wear a sack for all he cared.

When Inej reaches the dais, he holds out the hand not on his cane and she takes it. Warm and familiar, her grip reminds him of past bargains, of the negotiations that led them to this moment.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hello, Kaz,” she answers.

Beyond the light in her kohl-lined eyes and the pounding of his heart Kaz is oblivious to everything. Distantly, he knows Wylan is being witty and adorable—Jesper helped him memorise the speech weeks ago—but Kaz is somewhere else entirely. He misses his cue.

“Kaz,” Inej laughs, nudging his hand with the back of hers.

He blinks several times, looking between her and Wylan. “Oh, right! Sorry,” Kaz hurriedly pulls the crumpled napkin from his inside jacket pocket and ignoring Jesper’s choked laugh, looks down at Inej. “Okay.”

He thinks he should be nervous but in the warmth of her gaze, he realises there is no place he’d rather be and that this is not so difficult at all.

“Inej, my love.” _So much for no pet names._ “The way you tell the story of how we first met, it was I that found you. But I have always known it was you who found me. I was a cold, cruel, grieving boy and I would stay that way for a few years after but it was on that day that something in me began to thaw. How true your first words to me have turned out to be. You did help me, over and over again, though for the longest time I did nothing to earn your patience except return to you what no one had the right to take from you in the first place. You saved me, Inej.” He smiles around her name because he knows how she loves to hear him say it. “It was not your job, you did not _try_ to save me, and yet, that is what you did. So much of my strength, is yours. Everything I learned about patience and kindness, I learned from you.

“I promised you once that I would always come for you, that if I couldn’t walk, I would crawl to you and that together, we’d face whatever the world saw fit to throw at us. I didn’t know then what to do with everything I felt except fight. It was all I knew, I was convinced it was all I _wanted_ to know, so it was what I offered you. But, my Inej, because you are _my_ Inej and therefore _greedy—_ no matter how you deny it—you asked for more. So, here, as your Saints are my witness, I promise you more than my violence. I promise to love you, to cherish and guide and grow with you. I promise to build a life and a future with you—brick by brick.”

Fin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> your comments and kudos mean the world. please, let me know if you liked what you read! or come on over to tumblr and say hi! (find me at feelinglikecleopatra).


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